Advocating for Reproducibility

As guest editors, we are excited to publish this special double issue ofIASSIST Quarterly. The topics of reproducibility, replicability, and transparency have been addressed in past issues of IASSIST Quarterly and at the IASSIST conference, but this double issue is entirely focused on these issues

The Impact of Transformative Agreements on Publication Patterns: An Analysis Based on Agreements from the ESAC Registry

"Transformative agreements" are agreements made between publishers and institutions that were intended to transform the traditional subscription-based scholarly publishing system to open access. Some publishers and institutions have argued that these are the best option, yet, they are increasingly being called into question. Not only does the transition remain incomplete, they create negative effects on researchers without access to an agreement or funding to pay an article processing charge. This research project sought to address the question of whether transformative agreements increase the number of open access publications. In April 2022, we retrieved 370 transformative agreements from the ESAC Transformative Agreement Registry, of which 72 met our inclusion criteria. At that time, agreements in the ESAC Registry were heavily weighted towards Europe. We retrieved publications from the Web of Science Core Collection, and screened these to ensure that they were authored by researchers at participating institutions and published in hybrid open access journals covered by the agreement. Using the Unpaywall API, we determined the open access status of each item. Through this process, we identified 156,053 publications that met inclusion criteria. In this article, we examine changes in publication patterns at an aggregate level and per agreement

By the Numbers: Using Analytics.usa.gov to Learn about Traffic on Government Websites

A review is offered for the website, Analytics.usa.gov, which showcases traffic to federal government agency websites

A Strengths Approach to Research

Strengths U is an established initiative at the University of Minnesota. Using Clifton’s StrengthsFinder®, this initiative is designed to support the undergraduate experience and Student Learning Outcomes. Amy Riegelman and Kate Peterson, librarians at the University of Minnesota, and both members of the Teaching and Learning Coordinators, met with the leadership of the Strengths U Initiative to learn more about the program and eventually connected the 34 unique Strengths with library research suggestions. The information is now displayed on a library web page, and cards with each unique strength and mapped library research tips were disseminated at an orientation event. The content on the poster includes sample Strengths with coordinating research suggestions written by Riegelman and Peterson. Also, Riegelman and Peterson explain why this approach is effective; research on metacognition that has shown that having an awareness of your strengths before you begin a task or project may help you to learn more effectively